Reviews

Abysmal Dawn: Leveling the plane of existence

27/09/11 || InquisitorGeneralis

Abysmal Dawn has been receiving a high level of bromantic attention from me lately. I covered them in the Witnessed section when they toured with fellow top-notch death metal acts Hate Eternal and Origin. I also gave a pretty favorable write-up to their debut, From Ashes. Finally, Abysmal Dawn have reached their true potential with “Leveling the Plane of Existence”, a pure death metal album that almost perfectly the core elements of classic death metal in the vein of Grave and Deicide with more modern technical elements and song structures. Often times, when you get into a band hot and heavy, things wear off soon…like an early one-pump chump who blows his load after five sweaty minutes with a Thai she-male hooker. Thankfully, for me, this is not the case…both with Abysmal Dawn and my guy/gal Phuc.

What keeps me interested in “Leveling the Penis of Existence” is Abysmal Dawn’s unrelenting desire to keep things catchy and groovy while still blasting away with precision. The album’s three top tracks are my case in fucken point; “Rapture reknown”, “In service of time”, and the crushing “Perpetual dormancy” all inspire both air-blasting and serious headbanging. Perpetual dormancy especially invokes a classic Morbid Angel feeling with it’s pummeling choruses and hyper-catchy refrains. The breakdown/solo/mid-section is also excellent. The exact same can be said for “In service of time”, which also features some pretty cool lyrics and a groov’o‘licious breakdown in the middle that contains a riff worth sucking a cock for. “My own savior” also brings the groove but this time in a more Monstrosity-like style. Think “Wave of annihilation” or “Perpetual war” as reference points. Lyrically, all of the appropriate metal topics are covered; extinction, meaninglessness, death, suffering, and composting. As Mr. Elliot so eloquently puts it in “Leveling the plane of existence”…

No one will survive, you’re compost for creation!

“Pixilated ignorance” and the title track will satisfy your need for brutality. The rest of the album will satisfy your need for crushing death metal. This is the album that Morbid Angel were supposed to make. Charles Elliot has always demonstrated a keen eye for mixing in melody at just the right moment. And judging by the comments from this Audio Autopsy, it seems my fellow staffers agree with me. Group agreement (and masturbation) of that level is rare indeed, so Abysmal Dawn definitely have done something right on “Leveling the Penis of Existence”. This is my pick for album of the year…so far. Excellent production (heavy but not too overdone), interesting song structures, and heavy doses of old school groove combined with new-school technicality make this an album worth picking up and jerking off to. The band is tight and new drummer Scott Fuller Speeking of which, it’s time to blast “In service of time” and bust out my naked pictures of Smalley’s momma…